>Steve Clark writes:
>
><< In my post that you respond to, Jim, I did not
>offer any defense of punctuated equilibrium, and I will not do so in the
>future.>>
JB
>Well, Chuck had asked if evolution, in its current form, was falsifiable. You
>responded:
SC
><<Sure it is falsifiable. In fact some on this reflector claim that the
>paucity of transitional species and the tempo with which species disappear
>and new species appear in the fossil record disprove evolution. Of course,
>there is not universal agreement of this.>>
JB
>It seemed fair to ask, then, how this example--paucity of transitional
>species--was falsifiable.
My statement quoted above only reported what others on the reflector have
previously claimed. It had to do with how others claim that Darwinian
evolution has been falsified. I don't see how it begs a question for me to
defend whether punctuated equilibrium is falsifiable or not.
JB
the absence of transitional data is not
>subject to experimentation. It is historical science. And it is not a side
>issue. It strikes at the very heart of the Darwinian prediction. Verification
>has been sought for over 100 years. Finally, with a virtually complete fossil
>record, the essential prediction is foiled. In its place, someone proposes an
>alternative hypothesis, punk eek (itself a REJECTION of the traditional
>model), but the problem with it is that it defies falsifiability.
>
>No wonder you don't want to defend it!
You read too much into my unwillingness to defend punctuated equilibrium.
As I said, my reason for this is that I do not know enough about the model
and data for/against it to offer any sort of defense OR refutation. In
other words, the limitation that prevents me from participating in this
debate is me, not the model.
steve
__________________________________________________________________________
Steven S. Clark, Ph.D. Phone: (608) 263-9137
Associate Professor FAX: (608) 263-4226
Dept. of Human Oncology and email: ssclark@facstaff.wisc.edu
UW Comprehensive Cancer Ctr
University of Wisconsin
Madison, WI 53792
"Universities are full of knowledge; the freshmen bring a little in,
the seniors take none away...the knowledge accumulates." Mark Twain
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